U.S. intensifies hostilities toward Cuba

March 27, 200310:53 AM CST

The Cuban government warned of increased hostile activity by the Bush administration aimed at “destabilizing and subverting the constitutional order, infringing the law, conspiring against social development, boycotting economic relations, threatening the security and destroying the independence” of Cuba.

The March 18 statement said, “Our people have reacted with deep outrage to the public denunciation of the shameless and repeated acts of provocation by the Chief of the United States Interests Section in Cuba, acts that have clearly been conceived and carried out as part of the current U.S. administration’s hostile and aggressive policy towards Cuba, with the close cooperation and support of the Miami terrorist mob and the extreme right wing in the United States.

“The people’s outrage has grown even greater in the face of the cowardly and cruel measures of revenge adopted against the five Cubans who have been arbitrarily and spuriously sentenced to unjust, lengthy and in some cases lifelong prison terms, far from their homeland and their families.”

The Cuban government firmly stated that “No country, no matter how powerful it may be, has any right to turn its diplomatic representation into the organizer, financier, director and headquarters of activities” that undermine the sovereign right of a nation.

“The Cuban government strictly complies with the norms and principles that govern diplomatic relations between states. It has tried and will continue to try to act with extreme calm as it provides and will always provide, as it does with all others, full guarantees for the security of the U.S. diplomatic personnel who work in our country. Nevertheless, Cuba finds itself obliged to limit the movements of U.S. diplomatic personnel within Cuban territory, in reciprocity with the measures recently adopted by the United States against our own diplomatic personnel in Washington,” the statement said.

“For these reasons, several dozen people directly linked with the conspiratorial activities carried out by Mr. James Cason have been arrested by the corresponding authorities and will stand trial in the courts of justice,” the statement explained.

In a March 20 statement the Cuban government announced that a passenger plane was hijacked and flown to the U.S. on March 19. The passengers included 25 Cuban adults, an Italian citizen and five children.

The Cuban government called on the U.S. authorities “to return the hijacked civil aircraft immediately, together with its passengers and the perpetrators of this despicable act, which is specifically classified as an act of terrorism in three current international conventions that are binding on both the Cuban and U.S. governments.”

Despite its efforts, “the Cuban authorities still lack current information on these events,” the statement said.